Scott Glynn

Ken, I have been saying this same thing for years, but my opinion is you also make Oak street one way east to west and Yampa one way west to east. Make Lincoln a pedestrian mall, and put a parking structure at 8th and Oak. Businesses would still have the alleys to accept deliveries, and you could add a modicum of additional commercial real estate to the downtown area.

i would like to ask you a few questions regarding this letter you published. I would like to do so privately so as not to incur the opinion/misinformation that others may lend to the conversation. Would you be willing to contact me steamboathockeyref@zirkel.us to discuss?

Mr. Wedel, All activities are required to have a sponsor that is a member of the teaching staff. Unfortunately these teachers do not donate their time and these are paid positions that require income to be able to match their overhead. These groups take trips, participate in competitions, and incur other expenses, which cannot be met with bake sales. A participation fee is not unreasonable. I think you will find it harder to come up with examples of community service provided by "service" organizations than many of the varsity teams that SSHS has. I think you may be holding on to an outdated ideal of what the organizations had accomplished when you were in school. Opposed to the reality of current times.

Unfortunately the paper has given an incomplete view of what has been discussed. For clarification, Mr. DeWolfe never mentioned cutting of ANY activity. His information was to show that if you cut sports out of the programs, the amount you saved is actually less than the amount of revenue you would lose from participation fees, therefore it doesn't solve the issue. One major concern is that increased fees lead to diminished participation. This scenario also leads to reduced revenue. Whether you have 40 football players or 45 the overall costs are almost static yet you are losing $900 in revenue. In the interest of full disclosure, I am the father of a high school and middle school athlete. They are also both in the GATE program, and one of them participates in band. My youngest has expressed an interest in science and is fully engaged to be able to participate in science olympiad, NHS, etc. While academic programs are phenomenal, they do not have any larger measure of intrinsic value than athletics. These academic activities have significant overhead that needs to be funded. Currently these funds come from the activities budget. The Booster Club feels that it has a fiduciary responsibility to the participants of all activities to supplement the budget to allow as much participation as possible. What has happened is that the district has mandated school sponsored transportation which is where much of the cost overrun is. If the district mandates it, it is the Booster Clubs position that they should fund it. The district has also made decisions recently that have severely limited the ability of Booster Club to raise the funds it is able to met out. We have lost out on a major fundraising activity solely based on the districts decision to open a medical clinic with which we haven't seen any benefit from. Much of this is in addition to the districts decision that flies in the face of community feedback and BOE budgeting. Last year the district requested funding for a secretary. They were subsequently denied that request. Somehow the district was able to "find" enough money to hire a part time secretary in January (9 months after the budget process). Now they are requesting funds to make that position full time. This $16,000 request doesn't seem like much, yet when combined with the additional $16,000 it stumbled across in January it is a significant dent in this funding shortage. These are the reasons that the Booster Club feels that the district should absorb the lions share of the budget shortfall that is upon us.

Did he say "won't". I suppose he did. But I think the bigger issue is can he. The existing magazines owned by private citizens are grandfathered as legal. The new ones do not have a "sell by" date to determine if they were previously purchased or not. What do you want the guy to do? I would be willing to bet if he had a probable cause to enter a store that sold ammunition and there were illegal magazines in inventory, he would enforce the law. He just can't do that to Johnny Citizen.

Born and bred in metro Detroit, I come from one of the largest union areas in the country. I have witnessed the union impact first hand. The union business model is outdated. While it had its place post industrial revolution to protect workers from overzealous industrial magnates, it has morphed into a crutch that workers have used to reward mediocrity. I have several friends and acquaintances in the local fire/police community as well as several family members that serve their communities in the same capacity. I respect each and every one of them and I am very grateful for the job that they do. While the collective bargaining principle has negotiating merits on the surface, the deeper seeds that eventually get sown are the impacts of protecting workers who are not willing/able to perform their duty. If a firefighter has to rely on his brethren to do their jobs or perish, does he want to rush into that burning building knowing that the guy behind him having been accused of dereliction of duty is simply on his 2nd "probation" as opposed to being terminated? Unions are a nice concept, but what eventually happens, is the only people that benefit from the unions are the union officers themselves. I have witnessed first hand the politics and corruption. At the end of the day the amount of money the negotiating parties (both sides) lose, would be a nice pay raise for everyone.

There is a big misconception out there that is stemming from the semantics of the argument. The Tier I / Tier II debate is not about the funding or non funding of activities. The debate is not about what sports are more popular. And, the debate is not about every sport becoming Tier I.

The goal is to completely abolish the tier system. No more Tier I / Tier II. No more Tier I. Simply - Sailor Varsity Athletics. The goal is to not have a system where any individual sport is funded to a greater extent than the others. The goal is to put all Varsity Athletics on equal footing in the purview of the district and have all sports share in the athletic budget equally. It is the view of many parents and supporters that not any one activity is of greater value to the student athlete than another.

The challenge is how do we provide metrics that establish whether or not a sport is viable? At what point is participation enough to field a program? What type of "success" is required to keep funding a program? All difficult questions to answer. There are some exceptionally bright, and committed people convening to work through these issues to develop the answers.

Scott Wedel, your points are understood but there needs to be some clarity in both the reporting and your argument. The athletic budget also funds activities outside of the "sports" arena. Drama, and forensics are also in the mix. Dance showcase is another example of an activity that receives support from the district as well as participating in booster club fundraising opportunities.

There is a lot more information out there that spells these ideas out. Essentially what the A.D. has asked is that the district absorb the cost of funding all coaches salaries and a basic supply budget for each teams basic equipment needs. Other costs, uniforms, transportation, officials, extra equipment, medical supplies, athletic trainer costs, will all be funded from the participation fees, and the gate revenues with individual team budget shortfalls to be addressed by the booster club on an as needed basis.